A year ago, shortly after the murder of seventeen-year-old Lisa in Duivendrecht, the campaign ‘We reclaim the night’ was launched. Within days, the initiative grew into the largest Dutch crowdfunding campaign of 2025, raising more than 500,000 euros in donations and putting blue-and-yellow posters up across the country. Now, in August 2026, it’s time to look back. What has changed, and what hasn’t?
More attention
The figures show a clear pattern. In the second half of 2025, the number of media publications about women’s safety shot up: from around a thousand to well over ten thousand. A National Coordinator for Violence against Women and Domestic Violence was appointed, municipalities launched initiatives, and the subject became open for discussion in schools, workplaces, and sports clubs.
Maar in 2026 zakte die aandacht weer terug. Initiatiefnemer Danique de Jong lanceert daarom deze maand een vervolg: samen met Global Media & Entertainment komen de bekende posters structureel terug in het straatbeeld, niet meer gekoppeld aan een specifiek incident, maar als blijvend signaal. Ook fietsten de Dolle Mina’s in verschillende steden weer de nacht in om aandacht te vragen voor de veiligheid van vrouwen.
What research shows
Research by the EenVandaag Opinion Panel, conducted a year after the movement began, confirms how low young women’s sense of safety still is. Eight out of ten young women surveyed experienced some form of street harassment in the past year: staring, catcalling, comments, unwanted touching. In more than half of the incidents where bystanders were present, no one intervened. Because of this low sense of safety after dark, nearly all young women now take precautionary measures, from taking a different route to texting that they’ve arrived home safely.
Wat wel blijkt is dat er meer bewustzijn is over het thema onder jonge vrouwen én mannen. Uit het panel blijkt dat 68% van de jongeren meer bezig is met de veiligheid van vrouwen op straat dan voorheen. Maar bewustzijn alleen verandert het straatbeeld nog niet.
From incident to pattern
A recurring point in De Jong’s reflections is that the conversation and attention too often jump from incident to incident. After every shocking news report, outrage flares up, only to fade away again as soon as the news moves on. But violence and harassment is a structural problem that occurs everywhere. It happens behind closed doors, in the gym, on the dance floor, and on the street. Public space, unfortunately, is still marked by street harassment, and doesn’t feel safe to many people.
Street harassment goes unreported more often than not. Individual incidents quickly feel “too small” to report. Our reporting platform makes it possible to bring those separate experiences together: not as isolated news items, but as a pattern that becomes visible. Every report, however small, contributes to that bigger picture.
What ”We Reclaim The Night’ teaches us
A year after ‘We reclaim the night,’ the mission remains the same as it was then: not waiting for the next incident to make the news, but continuing to build structural change. At Intimideer Mij Niet, we do this by making the threshold for reporting as low as possible. We offer aftercare to people who have experienced street harassment, offering recognition, acknowledgment, and support. In doing so, we help people rebuild resilience and trust. We also bring individual experiences together into a collective picture, which can help municipalities implement structural measures. And we keep taking to the streets: to have the conversation right where the harassment itself takes place.
Do you experience street harassment, or do you see it happening? You can report it on our street harassment reporting platform, www.intimideermijniet.nl. Thanks to this platform, we’re able to map out what happens, where, by whom, when, and how street harassment occurs.
Want to help make the streets safe for everyone? Become an IMN volunteer! Sign up via imn@bo-diversity.com